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Silver Linings Playbook director David O. Russell will be the toast of this year's (13) Los Angeles Film Festival as he is honoured with the event's Spirit of Independence Award. The prestigious accolade "recognises an individual for his or her commitment to artistic independence" in cinema, with previous recipients including Charlize Theron and Clint Eastwood.
The filmmaker has also been appointed the festival's Guest Director, and will host a special screening of his 1999 movie Three Kings, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg.
Russell has also been invited to attend the 12th annual Filmmaker Retreat at George Lucas' northern California Skywalker Ranch, a gathering for directors involved in the L.A. festival.
The 2013 Los Angeles Film Festival is scheduled to run from 13-23 of June (13) in downtown L.A.

This post contains major spoilers for the April 3 epsiode of The Americans. Read at your own risk.
"Safe House," the ninth episode of FX's breakout Cold War spy drama The Americans is a game changer. In mercilessly killing off FBI agent Chris Amador, the show has proven that it's not afraid to take huge risks and make bold decisions. We know now, once and for all, that it's not afraid to go there.
Hollywood.com spoke with the man of the hour, Maximiliano Hernández about Amador's tragic fate, why he thinks the show missed an opportunity in its killing off of the only character of color, and why — in his opinion — The Americans tops Homeland.
Hollywood.com: Did you know when you signed on for the show that this would be your fate? Or were you surprised by the news?
Maximiliano Hernández: I was aware of my death by episode three. It was maybe around December that I knew what was happening. The writer's assistant called me and was like, "Hey, Joe [Weisberg] and Joel [Fields] want to get together and talk to you. Do you have time next week?" I said, "Yeah sure, like on Tuesday?" They were like, "Do you have a favorite restaurant?"
That was a Friday. And then over the weekend — you now when that little voice gets in your head and you're like, "What's going on here? What's happening here?" And then it bugged me the whole weekend and on Monday morning I sent them a text like, "Hey… Looking forward to tomorrow, maybe? Is everything okay?" And then they called me within 20 minutes and were like, "Listen, we just want to call you and talk to you and let you know that by the ninth episode you're going to die." And I just went quiet. And then I was like, "What the f**k are you talking about?" And they told me it had nothing to do with me or my ability or anything like that. They just needed a way to amp up the tension and intrigue and make the FBI a more important part of the heart of the show.
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That makes a lot of sense. Did you feel that way, too, that your side wasn't getting enough attention?
Yeah, I had been feeling reading the first few scripts, too, that this show is a lot more Directorate S-centric. Everyone on that side was sexy and they have missions, disguises, they're having all the sex, and then we're sort of like pushing papers around. It wasn't an equal thing. And I think [the showrunners] started feeling that way, too. Like, "We need to start encouraging this liking for the FBI. These guys aren't just doing their jobs, they're really trying to keep us safe and trying to save the world." So when they explained it that way and they explained the way it was going to happen, that it was going to be a big death, I was like, "Hey, whatever pushes the story forward. If it improves the story, if it pushes the story forward, then I'm all in. We'll do whatever we need to do."
I was just like, I don't want a bullet through the back of my head and have people be like, "Oh, that was an interesting character who was around for a little bit." If he's going to go out I wanted him to go out with them trying to get information from him and he doesn't give anything up. You would think that given his character earlier on that he would be like, "F**k this, I'm going to tell you whatever I need to to keep myself alive." But no, he is a man of honor, and he is a guy who will be like, "No, you're never going to get anything from me. F**k off." And I wanted to go that way.
I'm hoping that at least in the minds of the viewers that they get some sort of fulfillment out of it. Or that they just feel something for this guy, and that he wasn't just a wasted character with a wasted death.
It's obviously a huge turning point for the show and for Stan when Amador dies. And I was of course sad to see Amador go, but I was especially sad to see him go after that episode. I feel like in that single episode we get more character development than we have combined to date. With the flashbacks and seeing his relationship with Stan, I was left wanting to know more about him.
Don't we all! You should write that. Please write that down and send it in saying there should be more flashbacks with Amador!
Were the flashbacks part of the plan all along or if they were more of an afterthought?
They were totally planned. After I found out [about my death] I told Noah [Emmerich]. They didn't want me to tell anyone but I told them that they had to tell Noah. I said, "Listen, Noah is a friend of mine and he's a friend on stage; he and I have worked together in other movies and he plays my partner. He should know." And they said I was right. But Matthew [Rhys] and Keri [Russell] didn't know for a while. I knew first, then Noah knew, and then they let Keri and Matthew know. But what's funny is Keri, Matthew, and I had no scenes together ever until this last episode. So we hadn't built that camaraderie.
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What was it like working with them in that last episode, then?
Matthew and I had hung out outside of the show, but Keri and I had never hung out like that. So it really hit me like, this is a cool chick. And I told her, "I'm really going to miss that we did not work together." And she was like, "Me too." Because, I told her, I think this is her best work. And I think this is going to erase anything from the past. I think the Elizabeth Jennings character erases Felicity. It's like, [Russell] is so in it and she's so hard-lined and when you look at her, and it's a fight scene and she puts her hands up, she looks like she will mess you up. And she is fully committed to this. She enjoys this, she loves this character, she's fully committed. And I told her, "This is your best work. You've gotta stay on point with this. Elizabeth has gotta be that b**ch." Everyone's gotta point and say, "She's awesome." And I think that's what's happening right now.
You obviously had the most scenes, like you said, with Noah.
Of course, my boy Noah. Noah's my boy, he's always my boy. It's just so cool that we got to do those episodes together. To have that vibe and just hang and talk — and talk about romance. It was really good. But it was a little tough not being able to tell anyone [about my death] for a while. Because I knew so far ahead, before the red carpet premiere in New York, so it was bittersweet. I knew already on the carpet and while filming that I only had four episodes left, three episodes left, and so on.
And it was very tough, too, though, that it was a person of color that was dying. I just felt like we are so underrepresented, the fact that he was the only Latino in the counterintelligence division made it a really important character to play.
You're totally right!
Especially in that period, 1981, there were so few black men, Asian men, anyone brown. I think in the late '70s there were something like 200 minorities — and that included women and brown people — out of like 10,000 agents. Which to me is insane! And then, if you were a Latino agent they stuck you in something called the Taco Circuit, which is incredibly offensive. But that's what they called it! And you either worked at an outpost along the border, or in Miami watching Cuban dissidents. And even if you were overqualified, your job was only in a translator capacity. So even if you tested higher than a guy who is your direct superior, you could never be his superior. You were just there to translate.
So for me it was a really important character because I wanted to explore that a little more. I wish I would've gotten that chance.
He was a pioneer.
He really was a pioneer, so that was a bit of a bummer. But I'm not one of those guys who screams, "Whoa! The brown guy's dead!" It was funny to me because it wasn't the first thing I thought, and someone on set who isn't brown said it to me, under their breath, like, "Hmm… funny they got rid of the brown guy." And I looked at him and said I didn't wait to say anything. And he said it was the first thing that popped into his head. No way am I claiming any racism or anything like that, but it's just so funny that I really wanted to [go further with that].
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For sure. While I was watching the episode and it was still touch and go for Amador, the person I was watching with said to me, "If they kill him off then we'll know this show is serious." For me, The Americans had been walking the line between camp and a show that really takes itself seriously. But now we seem to have stepped up to a whole other level. I'm wondering what you think of that fact that your show has now joined the Homelands and the Game of Thrones in that you worry about every character in every episode.
Well, you know, I like that he had that idea because I also feel the same way while watching those shows. Like, I love Game of Thrones, and watching it I feel the same way, and when you don't know what's going to happen you are so shaken. And you're right, it kind of went from where it easily could have been campy, and then there are these moments of really serious stuff. And to me, the serious stuff always plays better when it comes to this kind of espionage stuff. The fine line, though, is there have to be moments of humor, and you need to have those funny quips because if not it ends up becoming sort of like Homeland. Because I thought Homeland was great Season 1, but I wasn't too big a fan of it Season 2. I think it lost a lot of its spy-iness, to be honest with you.
Do you think that's what sets The Americans apart?
Yeah! The other thing that bothered me about Homeland was all the cell phones. Like, everything is done on the cell phone and there's no more of the going and leaving a mark and picking something up, like real actual spy craft. The Americans for me is analogue. There's a texture to it, you can hear it. And Homeland is digital. And when you watch the show, it really is digital. It's all just digital stuff, there's very little meeting at the safe house and the real spy stuff. You don't see the disguises, you see a lot more of that on our show. But you're right, that can be campy, too. So in a way I'm glad that it's going this way — it's getting tenser, it's getting realer, and you really start feeling, "Oh my God, are they going to kill Nina?!"
I worry about her every episode!
Everyone worries about her! Everyone is always, "Oh my God. Oh my God," about Nina. And honestly, I think that at some point they're going to have to take out Martha, because she knows too much. She knows so much, and now these things are going to start popping up in her head, she'll find blood or something, and they're going to have to start tying up loose ends. And to me, I'm glad that they're building that up because I think the audience enjoys it, too. I just hope they don't lose all the lightness. You need to have those moments — like, the moments with the kids are great — because if you don't then it just becomes so heavy. It's so dark and there is never a joke made, and it can't fall into that sort of Dark Knight world (that's what I call it) where everything is so serious. We'd get bored, I think! But I do think it quickly got up to the Homeland level, it jumped up in a very short amount of time.
It absolutely has. Do you have any last thoughts about the show and your grand exit?
Hmm… last thoughts. Well, if I have to go, I'm glad it was the way I went. And I'm glad I went with my mouth shut. No rats, we don't like rats around here.
Follow Abbey On Twitter @AbbeyStone
[Photo Credit: Craig Blankenhorn/FX]
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Sometimes they descend from the ceiling, sometimes they seep up through the floorboards like vapor, sometimes they're just sitting on the couch of some shitty restaurant with a buzz on waiting to cackle and harangue you. Yes, I'm talking about ghosts. Last night's episode of Real Ghostbusters of Cross Stream Station was haunted. It was like Turn of the Screw and The Woman in Black all rolled into one. It was like Ghost except there was no pottery, just the frail broken egos of our heroines and the returning favorites that producers threw in there so that we could get a chuckle.
Last night we got to visit with Kevin Lee, Lisa's old party planner that launched a million "chi chi chi chi chi" GIFs; Dana Wilkie, a sad soul that is stuck on this side of the great beyond because she refuses to let go of her $25,000 sunglasses; and Adrienne the former queen of the Maloofs, who was dismembered by her own people, a race of mole people that live below the mountain. They were all back and whistling on the wind, causing candles to flicker, Ouija boards to hover, and Nicolas Sparks to think up stupid endings to his movies that have to do with the ghosts of ex-wives planning a bachelorette party for some skank who is going to marry the ghost's widower.
But before we can get to all them, the ladies were still in Paris. The screen told us it was their "last evening in Paris," which sounds like it should be an indie with Julie Delpy, an old dirty flick with Marlon Brando where he uses butter as lube for anal sex, or a sequel to one of the Sisters Richard's neices more popular adult videos. But no, it is finally the end to their boring trip to the City of Lights. Even for us it feels like that last day of vacation where you had a lot of fun but you are just exhausted and you can't wait to be back in your bed and get back to your routine and finally have someone to just speak English to at the cafe when you order your coffee in the morning. It's like a pre-jet lag kinda feeling.
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Nothing much happened other than Yolanda Bananas Foster gave Brandi a pair of jade green gladiator stilettos that look amazing on her but won't look good with one single outfit in the entirety of the universe. Seriously, what do you wear those with? Yolanda bought them for Brandi because she felt bad that she didn't have anyone to be romantic with in Paris. After all Lisa could think of Ken, Kyle could think of Mauricio, Yolanda could think of David Foster Wallace, and Kim could think of that one pill she thinks she hid in the frame of a painting in her living room that has her name on it when she finally lands back in the States. But Brandi? She has nothing. Only shoes. She only has her material possessions to keep her warm at night, and Yolanda feels sad.
While they were on the boat eating their dinner, the lights suddenly started to flicker and a chill washed through the air. There was a distinct "OOooHHoOOOOoOoooHhhHHHooooo," sound all over the boat and everyone looked around until they saw the specter of Russell Armstrong standing in the corner covered in chains. They were the heavy chains of greed. "Ladies, before this episode is over, you will be visited by three ghosts! This will change how you all look at everything! Behold the ghosts and despair!"
"Well, that was odd," Lisa said and shrugged it off and tucked back into her filet mignon as the Seine bubbled slowly beneath them. But little did Lisa know that she would be greeted by the first ghost, the Ghost of Housewives Past! Yes, it was Kevin Lee, a scarecrow that purchased one of Michael Jackson's old faces. Kevin, as we all know, planned Pandora's wedding last season and, well, he's a card. I love the dynamic that Lisa has with him, where he demands opulence and she pretends like she's the salt of the earth and then finally gives in and lets him serve cocktails with platinum flakes in Swarovski encrusted champagne flutes. Kevin is there to plan Lisa and Ken's housewarming party which will also be their vow renewal ceremony, a rite of passage that only happens on Bravo reality shows.
Lisa doesn't want to go through with this charade or renewing her vows, but Ken and Kevin think it is romantic so she goes along with it. This ghost convinces her that what she said before doesn't matter, that the ceremonies held long ago, in seasons past, don't matter. What matters is the present. Lisa learns from this ghost to stop living in the past, stop holding onto her grudges and petty resentments, and move towards a blissful state of grace and acceptance – with antique linens and $250 a plate hors d'oevres.
We now interrupt this retelling of A Christmas Carol to present the newest episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster. On this week's episode, Yolanda goes to a photo shoot with her husband, David Foster Wallace for an "Asian magazine." She gets all dolled up and finds a dress and gets her makeup done because David only has an hour between playing piano for Barbra Steisand and recording with Rod Stewart and Andrea Bocelli (who is a man, baby), so he can only spare an hour for a photo shoot. Yolanda wears a dress with nude illusion down the front of it so it looks like her boobs and cooter are hanging out and David Foster Wallace pretends he hates it but he really loves it. He loves it when they lie down on a carpeted staircase and pose longingly and it is such a sad and awful thing that it looks like something that would be on the cover of one of those plastic surgery magazines in your dermatologist's office that you are scared of but also want to look in so you can try to figure out just who the hell makes such awful tacky horrible rich people nonsense. And then David is off once again, and Yolanda is there to clean everything up and take her Asian modeling magazine back home to work out 17 times.
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We now interrupt this episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster to show you a previous unaired episode of Million Dollar Listing: Los Angeles. On this episode, a woman named Fetch (who isn't going to happen) is tasked with selling her mother-in-law's gigantic $23 million dollar estate. The MIL (in The Knot message board parlance) is one of those people who spent $7 million on fully grown trees so that she wouldn't have to look at little saplings, she wanted a huge arbor in her back yard and she would pay for it full grown. Anyway Fetch has her friend's husband, who is an actual broker not some bored housewife who thinks she can sell a house or three, over and they tour the house and decide how much they are going to sell it for. Fetch keeps calling him Maurice even though his name is Mauricio. Or is it? Do Kim and Fetch know something the rest of us don't? And how will these two get along with the other homosexuals that are on this show? Find out next time!
Now we're back to our regularly scheduled program and the Widow Armstrong is going to have lunch with a mysterious friend! She's going through a bad break up, and we see her brunette head over the back of the couch. Who could it be? Who ever could it ever be? It is Dana Wilkie, the Ghost of Housewives Present and the break up that she is trying to work through is her breakup with life. Dana was so devastated that she wasn't cast as a full-time member on the show that she drowned in a shallow puddle of her own tears. That is why her man left her and her Lamborghini (I mean, who really has one of those?!) is gone and no one has heard from her in ages. It's because Dana (aka Pam) is dead.
Poor Dana doesn't even know it. Taylor shows up to lunch and Dana is already three mojitos in to her afternoon, because Dana has not been living since 2004 so she has no idea that people have stopped drinking mojitos. Dana is essentially the girl who stayed too long at the party. We all have a friend like her. She was having such a good time in her 20s drinking all the trendy drinks and carrying around her white (vomit) Birkin and sleeping with every guy who had a fancy sounding job that she never bothered to change. She never bothered to grow up. "I drink a lot and I'm OK with it. I [dirty word for whore around] a lot and I'm OK with it!" she slurs, defending her choices, not to the Widow Armstrong and the world, but to herself, taking another swig hoping that the burning in her throat will set the emptiness inside her on fire and singe it out of her, filling her back up again.
Oh Dana, so sad talking about "everyone in our group" as if she is still a Real Housewife. Oh Dana, so sad talking about her hatred of Brandi, who stole her slot on the show by being authentic and real and rude and wonderfully awful. Oh Dana, so sad and deluded thinking that she still has a chance, if she drinks enough and smokes enough and croaks her throaty laugh enough it will bring her back to life. She tries to keep it light and fun, she tries to be the life of the party, but then it hits her like a pall, it comes over her like a stench of darkness and she leans forward and her brown casts a shadow over her face and suddenly she is like a Sybill speaking the truth to the Widow Armstrong, "Listen to me, dearie, and listen closely. They will not help you. All these women do is love themselves. I'm not sure if they have any room in their love for themselves to love you." She picked up the giant crystal lighter from the coffee table and tremulously lit another cigarette and as she inhaled it's as if she imploded into herself, gone as quickly as she appeared, leaving behind just a whisp where she once sat.
The Widow Armstrong learned her lesson immediately. She had become Dana, she was drinking too much and relying too much on this show for her identity. If she were ever cut from the cast, she would be dead too. Maybe it was time to mend her relationships. At Kyle's party she let the lesson that Dana taught her (and, really, is Dana in any position to be teaching anyone lessons?) take hold, and she apologized to Yolanda Bananas Foster for treating her and her husband shabbily. She explained she was put off because her good friend had been married to David Foster Wallace. The funny thing about Bananas was that she didn't say thank you and move on — well, she did, but first she had to teach the Widow Armstrong a lesson about how awful she had been. Oh, Bananas, don't you know it's best not to change things?
We're getting ahead of ourselves. It is time to talk about the party for the opening of Kyle Richard's Sleeveless Shirt Emporium and Crab Shack. Yes, it's her store of glittery frocks that is now open to the public somewhere in one of the finer shopping districts in the L.A. suburbs. It is actually called Kyle by Alene Too and it is right between Amanda by Johnny Five and and Dress Barn. Kyle is there presiding over the store in one of its signature gowns which is a mix of a floral pattern, draping, a peplum, sequins, gold plating, and some sort of layering that was totally lost on me. It was made out of 17 rag dolls boiled down in a cauldron.
All the ladies "from our group" were there and they were all wondering where the last one was. Where could she be, this thing that has been so long absent from all their lives? Finally, she arrived — shining like a bone jutting out of carrion, it was Adrienne former Queen of the Maloofs. She was there looking stunned and lost, telling everyone how pretty they looked and ignoring everything that was wrong, ignoring the sham that her marriage had become, the travesty that being open for the cameras would cause. She was the Ghost of Housewives Future and she looked like a blank gravestone on which every other Housewife saw her name. This is the destruction that will come for all of you if you hang around too long: lesson be learned!
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Speaking of lessons, Kim Richards is finally learning a thing or two about her sobriety. Paris (the city, not her niece) taught her that not everyone is going to trust her, that the people in her life still have that fear of what is behind the door when she doesn't answer. After a passive aggressive call from Kyle to make sure she's going to be on time to the store opening (Kim's brilliant response, "Haven't I been on time all year? Aren't you the one who is late now Hardy-Tardy?"), the Sisters Richards go aside for a little tete-a-tete. We see Kim's tiny heart-shaped tattoo on her right shoulder blinking at us like it's an eye that sees both the past, present, and future. It's the mark left on her when she was kissed by her demons.
Kyle asks Kim why she's been behaving so oddly, and Kim says that she got home from Paris and slept for two days, the darkness coming over her once again and she didn't know to get out of bed and open the blinds. Then she looked at her medicine. "What I thought was my water pill looked a little bit different. So I went and put in my contacts and really looked at it and it was a slightly different color and was fatter than usual. That's when I realized it was that pill I was taking last year that caused me to be so out of it. I was taking it again by mistake." Yes, that is how Kim explains it. I'm sorry, but that sounds like some crazy addict excuse to me. Does she not keep her pills in their own separate bottles? Does she just have a Ziplock in her medicine cabinet full of tablets and she just pulls a few out based on what matches her outfit and swallows them? Please.
But Kyle buys it. "It makes a lot of sense," she says, snapping back into that old role of the enabler, of letting herself be swayed by Kim's half-truths. But maybe Kim is telling the truth, maybe it's time that we all trusted her a little bit more. At least Kim learned from Lisa's cracks in Paris that maybe she doesn't deserve to be given carte blanche to do what she wants. "I don't deserve all the trust right now," she says, and she's right. She hasn't been very clear with everyone about what happened or what is going on, she just puts on her brave face to the public while she's holding on tightly to her sobriety. It's not as easy as she makes it look, as she wants everyone to think it is.
Finally she tells Kyle what really happened. "Seven months ago I was lying on a bed and I knew I was going to die, and I didn't want to die but there was nothing I could do to stop it. " I had a vision of Kim lying in her bed in just a soiled T-shirt, the covers clumped around her and the slats from the afternoon sun striking against her face. It was sad. It was so, so sad. Kyle rebutts with the old, "Every time the phone rang I thought they were going to tell me my sister was dead," as she can only see Kim's pain through the lens of her own suffering. This wasn't about Kim's death, it was about Kyle's grief. Kim says she can't promise she'll be sober forever, but she's trying. She's trying her damn best and Kyle accepts that and offers her help. Kim knows that when Kyle says to "call her," that it won't help, it will never help, but sometimes even the acknowledgement of support is as good as support itself.
Kim leaves the party and gets into her limo, which she sort of feels is a waste now that she can always drive herself home from a party. Well, at least most of the time. Oh, how she used to love a party. Kim thinks of all the times she had, doing blow in bathrooms at clubs and sipping wine at gatherings large and small. Sure, she remembers the bum times too, crawling on the floor hoping that there was a little bit of powder in the grout she could rub on her gums, but even those don't seem so bad from far away. She remembers that she used to say yes to everything. That was Kim. Yes, she wants to go out. Yes, she wants to meet guys. Yes, she wants another drink and to go home with a stranger and maybe take a pill if he offers it to her. Yes, she always used to say. Now it's the opposite. She rolls down the window and looks out at the night, dotted with establishments with their lights on: convenience stores that sell bottles of beer, restaurants with their wine lists as long as her arm, and bars, oh the smelly comfort of a bar where she could have whatever she wanted as long as she wanted and just teeter back to that limo and collapse back on her bed until the sun streaked through the blinds in lines across her face. No, she thought to her self. No, no, no, no, no. That's what she's trained herself to say forever, even when it's hard. No, she says. She has to say. No.
Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter @BrianJMoylan
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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Your usual morning routine exploring the countless folds of the digital universe might have landed you face-to-face with a Google Doodle of interest and curiosity. And if you're the kind of nerd who appreciates the diction that comprised that last sentence, you are also probably an avid fan of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and its prolific creator Douglas Adams. Today would mark the 61st birthday of the writer and humorist, who died in 2001 at 49 of a sudden heart attack. The doubtless leviathan of Hitchhiker's Guide fans who work over at Google have taken the opportunity to commemorate Adams' most celebrated work with an interactive homepage.
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Clicking around on the Google Doodle, which features the operational system of an Adamsian spaceship, offers a few fun nods to the comedy/science fiction franchise, which has taken form in radio, print, television, and film. References include a computer screen broadcasting phrases like "Don't panic" and "Mostly harmless," and a brief cameo by Marvin the Paranoid Android.
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Although 61 might seem like an odd birthday to commemorate (it's not exactly 50 or 75 or — perhaps most appropriate — 42), Adams' work transcends the limitations of basic anniversarial propriety. Approximately 35 years after its original creation for BBC Radio, the themes and concepts making up Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy — the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, the truth about dolphins, and the principal achievement of knowing where one's towel is — all remain fundamentally fresh, unique, and entertaining.
Thanks for all the fish, Doug.
Follow Michael Arbeiter on Twitter @MichaelArbeiter
[Photo Credit: Ed Kashi/Liaison/Getty Images]
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Blame it on the Oscars commanding Hollywood's attention, but even a star as powerful as The Rock didn't have the muscles to knock comedic juggernaut Identity Thief off the box office mountain this weekend.
The actor's latest vehicle Snitch packed less of the straight up goon-smashing and explosions common in his previous movies, spotlighting Mr. Johnson's better-than-expected dramatic abilities. The masses clearly wasn't hooked, with the movie bringing in a decent $13 million.
That's just a little less than the holdover competition, Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman's madcap comedy, Identity Thief. The movie brought in another 14.06 million this weekend, bringing its total to $93.67 million. If (or when, judging from the numbers) Identity Thief crosses the $100 million domestic mark, it will be the first film of 2013 to reach the milestone.
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The weekend's other newcomer had even worse luck against the powers of broad comedy and deafening lead-in to the Academy Awards. Dark Skies, starring Keri Russell and produced by the people who brought us Paranormal Activity, managed a meager 8.85 million for a sixth place slot in the top ten. Even with surprisingly positive reviews, the sci-fi/horror movie couldn't abduct enough moviegoers to contend with the crowded slate.
Giving Snitch and Dark Skies a literal run for the money, was the animated Escape from Planet Earth, which took 11.01 million for a $35.14 million total gross, the Nicholas Sparks romance Safe Haven, grossing 10.6 million for $48.06 million to date, and the other February action blockbuster, A Good Day to Die Hard, which wrangled $10 million for a $51.8 million total. All three are in their second weeks of release.
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Continuing to siphon money after 15 weeks in theaters is Silver Linings Playbook. Another Weinstein Company success story, the film starring Oscar-nominees Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence slowly gained momentum leading up to the Academy Award nominations where its grosses carried it to full on "hit" status. This weekend Silver Linings picked up another $6.05 million for a domestic gross of $107.48 million.
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Oscar weekend is upon us, which means all eyes will be on Hollywood's version of the Super Bowl with Oscar contenders making a final stand at the box office before the telecast on Sunday night. Dwayne Johsnon will also see the debut of his action crime drama Snitch, and Keri Russell appears in the horror entry Dark Skies.
Fortunately for Melissa McCarthy and Jason Bateman, Identity Thief is not held up to Academy Award standards but rather the popular vote, which gave the R-rated comedy a number one debut two weeks ago and a President's Day weekend near-upset over A Good Day to Die Hard. The comedy enters its third weekend with close to $80 million in the bank and ranks as the highest-grossing film released this year. A trip back to the number one spot could be in the cards this weekend with an expected gross in the high teens and total domestic gross of more than $90 million by Sunday night.
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But hold on a minute: Bruce Willis ruled President's Day weekend smashing up about $36.9 million in A Good Day To Die Hard's first five days. This weekend the latest Die Hard installment will tangle with Thief and make a run at the top spot with a mid-to-high-teen gross. The action film will pass the $50 million mark by the end of the weekend and thus become the highest grossing R-rated action flick released in 2013 thus far.
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As one of two wide release newcomers, Snitch will debut in 2,511 theaters on Friday. Starring Dwayne Johnson in another kickass, take no prisoners role, Snitch follows a father whose teenage son is wrongly accused of drug trafficking, forcing him to infiltrate a drug cartel to get his boy off the hook. Co-starring Susan Sarandon and Benjamin Bratt, the PG-13 action crime drama is expected to gross in the $10 million to $12 million range.
The other wide release newcomer is Dark Skies, the PG-13 rated horror sci-fi thriller starring Keri Russell as woman affected by disturbing events in her once-peaceful suburban existence. The film co-stars Josh Hamilton and will try to capitalize on being the only new horror movie in the marketplace since the hit Mama debuted back in mid-January. It should wind up with a gross in the high single digits or potentially a bit higher.
Looking for love this Oscar weekend will be the Nicholas Sparks big screen adaptation of Safe Haven, which opened at number one on Valentine's Day and made a solid showing, placing third over President's Day weekend with $24.5 million and $33.3 million in its first 5 days. In this, its second weekend, a gross in the $10 million range will give a shot at a spot in the top 6.
Now on to the Best Picture nominees that will be making their mark this weekend: Silver Linings Playbook (no. 7 last weekend - $100.87M thru 2-20), Zero Dark Thirty (no. 10 last weekend - $89.0M thru 2-20), Argo (no. 12 last weekend - $127.6M thru 2-20), Life of Pi (no. 13 last weekend - $111.7M thru 2-20), Lincoln (no. 14 last weekend - $176.96M thru 2-20), Django Unchained (no. 15 last weekend - $157.65M thru 2-20), Les Miserables (no. 19 last weekend - $145.96M thru 2-20), Amour (no. 20 last weekend - $4.27M thru 2-20) and Beasts of the Southern Wild (no. 31 last weekend - $12.34M thru 2-20).
If not for the strong performance of this year's crop of Oscar-nominated films, we would be looking at a much bigger year over year deficit than the 7 percent we are currently experiencing. Notably the North American box office total for all nine Best Pic conteners is a whopping $926,518,816, and this weekend should see all of them getting a nice lift as people scurry out to catch up on their moviegoing before Sunday's awards are handed out.
[Photo Credit: Universal Pictures]
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Fun fact: Did you know that when you go to Starbucks and ask for the strongest, most caffeinated drink on the menu, they’ll give you an iced coffee with two shots of espresso? Not only am I wide awake, but I’ve discovered three amazing things this morning: 1.) I can spin in my chair eight and a half times before getting insanely dizzy. 2.) Googling Harlem Shake videos and then having a heated debate with your co-worker over the best one is a fantastic way to spend 30 minutes. 3.) I type really really quickly when I have amazing TV scoop to share.
This week’s edition of Leanne’s Spoiler List is filled with a great mix of five fantastic shows. Hollywood.com's spoiler spies gathered details from Giancarlo Esposito about Revolution’s dynamic return to TV and chatted with the unbelievably lovely Keri Russell to learn more about the heated scenes between our favorite Cold wars spies on The Americans. Grab some tissues because I’ve got spoilers on a pivotal Beauty and the Beast death, and how our favorite dysfunctional family will be ripped apart on Shameless. Plus, I answered one of your Twitter questions with some sexy Smash scoop! Read on for all the caffeine-fueled TV craziness below!
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1. Revolution: A Fast-Paced Return
When we last saw Monroe, he had accomplished what seemed like the impossible for our favorite characters on Revolution: not only did he have power, but he used that power to control working helicopters! That doesn't mean good things for Miles, Charlie, Danny, and co. — something star Giancarlo Esposito agreed with when we chatted during a break from filming — but Esposito added that it may not be too good for Monroe either. "Monroe has got stuff going on and he's slowly becoming unhinged because he has too much to think about," Esposito revealed.
But what about Esposito's Captain Neville? "I would hope that Neville is off meditating in the mountains or the Himalayas but he's not," Esposito teased. "He's trying to figure out how to survive just like everything else." Let's hope that doesn't mean plotting retaliation against Miles, who had just kidnapped and threatened Neville's wife in the midseason finale. We know how much Neville loves to get his revenge... and it's usually bloody.
And just in case you were worried Revolution was going to slow down in the back half of its freshman season, time to put those worries to rest. "This show is quickening. The pace is quickening and also the storylines are quickening," Esposito said. "I don't want to spoil it, but it's probably going to be double-matched, doubly more action-packed than it was in the first [half] and I think people are going to be very surprised... It's going to be a full-on ride now for the next few months." We can't wait!
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2. Shameless: Sibling Hide and Seek
Remember way back when in episode two of this season, when Frank drunkenly called Child Protective Services from the phone at the Alibi Room? Did you really think that Shameless would let that gem of a moment fall into the hazy alcohol-induced past? Nope! Since life is never easy for the Gallaghers, the kids' lives will get even harder when social services places them in different homes throughout Chicago.
Jumping straight into mommy mode, Fiona's first order of business is to find where everyone is — then to make sure they're all okay. And of course her next goal is to do everything humanly possible to get our favorite dysfunctional family back together. Unfortunately, even though she's been taking care of the kids for years, Fiona has no authority in the eyes of the court. Perhaps there's a more permanent solution out there...
Meanwhile, Veronica and Kev's quest to have a baby takes a bizarre turn when the couple tries to find a surrogate. Their selection is a person who's closer to them than you'd think — but they'll get even closer when they take unconventional steps to conceive. Gotta love that crazy couple.
And here’s another tidbit, just for fun: Someone that several of the Gallaghers are intimately acquainted with returns to town. Who could it be?! Shout out your speculations in the comments!
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3. The Americans: Short-Lived Marital Bliss
The end of last week's episode may have infuriated some fans of The Americans (I know I was mad!) Here’s a quick refresher: Philip gave Elizabeth the cold shoulder for her former affair with a colleague, possibly forgetting the fact that he is currently embroiled in an affair of his own. Double standard: party of one?
To help sort out all of the Cold War craziness, Hollywood.com spoke to Keri Russell last week, and she said that Elizabeth will catch on sooner than we think. "Oh, I think she's going to care," Russell teased. "I think she's going to start caring, a lot. I have a feeling she'll take care of things."
Uh-oh... does that mean a certain mistress may find her head on a stick (Oh wait, sorry! This isn't Game of Thrones... ) I’m not too sure, but I do know that their recent marital bliss will be short-lived. "Things heat up, instantly," Russell said. "They are heightening the relationship. Philip and Elizabeth have been working together all of this time — she has always been the hard-liner, where he's been the one that can bend.”
The actress explained that even though these two are leading false lives, their feelings for each other are far from fake. “This new aspect of their relationship, where they may truly be in love now, doesn't change that past. Some things are going to be brought up that are documented facts of the way they were different back then, and could be very fractious to the relationship."
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4. Beauty and the Beast: A Killer Episode
Get ready for one killer episode of Beauty and the Beast when the Grim Reaper comes a knocking in Thursday’s all-new episode. You read that right, fans: someone’s going to die! Sheesh, first The Vampire Diaries and now this? Why can’t you just let us be happy, CW Gods?!
Jay Ryan, the hunky hottie behind beastly Vincent Keller, warned us weeks ago that someone was going to bite the dust in “Tough Love”… we just didn’t want to believe him! Sigh.
“Vincent is in a position where he has to save the life of Catherine’s sister, and in doing so it forces the beast to accidentally kill someone that was in the way of saving Heather’s life,” Ryan told Hollywood.com. “And that person is very close to one of our series regulars. So it basically ramps up the witch-hunt on Vincent.”
Eek! I checked in with my all-knowing CW spoiler fairy and we can confirm that this “someone” is definitely close to more than one of our series regulars. But of course I can’t exactly tell you who, now can I? I can tell you that executive producer Brian Peterson says you definitely don’t want to miss Thursday night’s jaw-dropping episode.
“What happens after Vincent has killed somebody is that it will galvanize a certain group of people on the show against the vigilante and motivate their need to destroy him. Everything gets turned on its head. It is the most pivotal episode of the whole series thus far,” Peterson told Hollywood.com. “The tragedy of Vincent’s nature and his instinct to protect switches everything up.”
One thing that BatB fans should definitely know: Make sure you have your kleenex box handy, because this episode is a tearjerker. Don't say I didn't warn you!
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5. Twitter Question: @Whattowatch100: Smash news please! Is there hope for Karen &amp; Derek after the beer bottle snub? #leanneslist
That moment — which I’m now officially declaring as the Beer Brushoff of 2013 — was certainly an interesting interaction in last night’s Smash, wasn’t it? We all saw that Karen definitely has a little bit of a crush on Broadway’s newest bad boy, and in next week’s episode things get even more heated. Okay, I’m all hopped up on caffeine so I’m just gonna say it: there’s going to be a smooch, y’all!
Sure, it may not be the most romantical of moments, and there may or may not be heavy drug use involved, but let’s be honest: If Jimmy’s face was right next to yours, you’d kiss it too!
Just because next week’s episode, “The Song,” has some Kammy (Karen/Jimmy) chemistry, doesn’t mean that all hope is lost for the world’s most debonair director. Derek is a bit preoccupied with Ronnie’s phenomenal Bravo-televised one-night-only spectacular, and dealing with the stage mom from hell. If you thought Rebecca Duvall was a diva, just wait for the ferocity to hit the fan when Ronnie’s mother hits the stage.
And speaking of Season 1 storylines, does anyone happen to remember a smarmy, peanut-wielding, rat of an assistant named Ellis? Let’s just say that my wish did not come true and he was not run over by a bus after last season’s finale.
How are you feeling about the new Jimmy/Karen chemistry on Smash? Who do you think is going to die on Beauty and the Beast? Intrigued by the familiar face returning to Shameless? Tell me everything in the comments below!
Follow Leanne on Twitter @LeanneAguilera
—Additional reporting by Sydney Bucksbaun, Jean Bentley, Shaunna Murphy and Kelsea Stahler.
[Photo Credit: John Domoney/NBC, Will Hart/NBC, Chuck Hodes/Showtime, Ben Mark Holzberg/The CW, Craig Blankenhorn/FX]
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Happy White Party, everyone! No, no, it's not a gay circuit party in Palm Springs (though that, too, is a White Party) or a gay circuit party in Miami (though that, too, is a White Party) or a sale at Bed Bath and Beyoncé (though that, too, is the Whites Party) or the KKK (thought that, too, is a party of whites). No, this is Kyle Richard's White Party a social event that is as hotly anticipated as, I don't know, the spring formal at a Junior College? The Cupcake Day fundraiser at your child's school? Something like that. Aren't you so excited for the White Party? Sure you are.
I believe that when it started all those years ago, it was for charity or something, but now it's just a party in Kyle's backyard where her friends clog her street with limousines and all her neighbors pull their curtains tight passive aggressively and try to scowl at Kyle while ignoring the bad house music remixes that waft across their hedges and over the invisible barriers of their property. Yes, now it is just a party where Kyle celebrates everything that is white. Mostly white people. Oh, and Brandi Glanville's black friends Etirsa and Byron Allen, that guy who hosts those syndicated interview shows that air at 1 AM on Sunday night (Monday morning) when you should be in bed, but you are up just dreading the bitchy email you're going to have to send to your staff on Monday morning because you slept until noon Sunday afternoon after the bender on Saturday night. Why, oh why, can't weekends last forever?
Okay, so Kyle threw the White Party which is, well, it's just an excuse for people to get together, put on their alabaster outfits, and drape themselves in garlands of jewels and have a little party while Kyle and her off-White husband float in an inflatable island in the middle of the pool. Oh, and to fight. Yes, and since the fight this season is about Brandi and Adrienne Maloof's lawsuit, I am just going to break this down point by point so that we can refry these tired old beans once more and eat them in a taco of our own disgust.
We interrupt this recap to bring you this announcement from the producers of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster. There will be no new episode of At Home with Yolanda Bananas Foster this week. Please tune in next week for a very special episode Yolanda Bananas Foster's Refrigerator Odyssey Starring Yolanda Bananas Foster and the Aryan Race Players.
Okay, here are all the points we need to discuss about the White Party.
1. This time Brandi was smart enough to bring proof. Sure it was some dusty old emails printed out and folded into her purse, but like a good lady who doesn't have the money to hire her own lawyer, she is Erin Brockoviching this s*** and got documentation. Her emails prove that Bernie, Adrienne's cook, is selling stories about Brandi. So, Adrienne, the Queen of the Maloofs (a race of mole people that live under the mountain and are cooked by a man named Bernie) is busted on that one and she needs to fire him like she said she was going to.
2. Adrienne essentially admitted that she sent Brandi a cease and desist letter and she said, "A letter is different than a lawsuit." Yes, it is, Adrienne, but now you acknowledge the letter when last week at the Tea Party of Doom you said there was no letter. So, Adrienne is a liar because there was a letter and she knew there was a letter all along and trying to make herself look blameless is just making her look worse (which is something her nose already accomplishes). And when she said, "I had to hire a lawyer too. I wish I didn't have to hire a lawyer," I wanted to take one of her 65% off discount shoes and bat her on the side of the head with it. If she didn't want to hire a lawyer, she shouldn't have hired a lawyer! She, and her legions of lawyers, started it.
3. What sort of lawyer is Brandi going to that she had to pay $10,000? Can't she just go out on a date with an ugly lawyer from somewhere and get some "free" legal advice?
4. Brandi said, "I don't want to have to hire any more lawyers." Adrienne's husband, Paullo the chimp, responded, "Well, then don't go running your mouth off." Okay, this is why Adrienne and Paullo are the worst kind of rich people. They think that because they can afford legions of lawyers (more like a million of Paullo's brothers all pounding at typewriters trying to write a subpoena) that they can intimidate people into saying whatever they want or not saying whatever they want. Like Brandi said, "Welcome to the United States of [bleeping] America." People can say whatever they want and people can also sue as much as they want, but it doesn't mean that because someone is rich and can sue, they should do it to shut people up. That's just the worst kind of capitalism.
5. Thank god for Ken Vanderpump who is so rich that he can tell Adrienne and Paullo to go Vanderpump themselves for what they're doing to Brandi. He can't be intimidated. He has his own money and his own lawyers so he can speak his mind. He echoed their line from last season: (more on that in a second) "Friends don't sue friends." He told them to stop using their money to intimidate Brandi into doing their bidding.
6. Adrienne wears so much self tanner that when she comes over to Lisa's house and sits on the furniture she leaves giant stains that Lisa can't get off and Lisa had to have her white sofa reupholstered, which HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA (breath) HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA chortle chortle sputter gag death. I am dead from laughing. My ghost is writing this using a Ouija Board and my intern is transcribing. Adrienne just killed me. And then she told Lisa, "Oh, it happens to me all the time. Just use baby wipes, it comes right off." Now I am back from the dead so that I have a corporal hand with which to punch Adrienne so hard that her spray tan falls off and collects around her feet like a little puddle of liquid flesh.
7. Alright, I hate to say it but the Widow Armstrong is right. What Adrienne and Paullo are doing to Brandi is exactly what happened to her last year at the White Party. Her late husband Russell sent St. Camille a letter saying that he would sue her for telling the truth on camera and because of that letter, Adrienne and Paul lead the charge to have Kyle kick her out of the party. Because they sent the same letter to Brandi, Kyle should have kicked them out of the party too. But she did not, because not everyone hates Adrienne like they did Russell. Kyle is a hypocrite (but at least she finally understands that Adrienne is a jerk to sue Brandi). Adrienne is a hypocrite. So is Bravo, who aired Camille's allegation against a dead man (who can't sue), but still won't show us what Brandi said about Adrienne that caused this whole fight because, well, Adrienne and Paullo are the worst type of rich people and they are intimidating Bravo with their lawyers too.
8. This is all still about the "Maloof Hoof." Yes, it is. That is what it all comes back to. Ken told Paullo that they could have sued them for saying Lisa sold stories to the press, but they didn't even though their lies hurt his business (which I don't really believe, but a good defense, Ken), because friends don't sue friends. Paullo shot back, "Yeah, like the Maloof Hoof." That is what this fight is all about. Because of that remark, Adrienne decided to go after Lisa and enlisted Brandi. When Brandi wouldn't go along with it we started this slow decline into protracted trench warfare that we've been watching this whole season. Yes, it all comes back to the "Maloof Hoof." So, no matter how many times we break it down, the plot line of this entire season boils down to this: Adrienne Maloof is a joyless succubus who can not take a joke. That's it. That's the entirety of it. Cased closed.
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Speaking of how dumb Adrienne is, she also felt the need to flee her house because the mansion next to hers, the one formerly owned by the Vanderpump clan, was on fire. Sure, it was a giant blaze and took 100 fire fighters to put it out, but come on, Adrienne. She thought the fire would "jump" over to her house. Do you know how many embers would have to float on the breeze to travel the 17 acres between Lisa's house and hers? It would have to fly past the tennis court, over the gate, over Adrienne's expansive lawn, over her dogs that she also can't take jokes and land on her roof. Do you know how far that is? It is further than the logical leap Adrienne makes to show how what she is doing to Brandi is different from what Taylor and Russell did last year. That's how far it is. It is farther than the stars.
And what was up with the older kids who were hanging out with Adrienne and Paullo's children (who were definitely absolutely in no way whatsoever born by a surrogate)? Who were they? Was one old enough to lust after? Please say yes. And what was up with blurring the faces of Adrienne's kids? She obviously agreed to have them filmed in the first place, but is that the blur of contention now that she and Paullo are getting a divorce? I think I see the mark of the beast upon them.
{DING DONG} Oh, what was that? It was my doorbell. Oh, there is a messenger here and he just handed me an envelope. Oh, what is this? It's an engraved invitation. "You are hereby invited to a party at the home of Ms. Kim Richards (not to be confused with her daughter Ms. Kimberly Richards) where she will be unveiling the identity of her new nose. She knows that you nose that she knows noses and would be honored if you could join her at her humble abode on Monday, February 18, at 7 PM. RSVP, regrets only."
Oh, why I would love to attend! Thank you, Kim. It also just dawned on me that if Kim Richards were to ever have her own reality show, it should be called "Regrets Only." Just saying.
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When we arrived at Kim's party she was not making her signature dish, a hand-tossed chicken salad that no one will eat. Instead she was giving instructions as to what drinks should be made at the espresso bar (no alcohol at this here shindiggerino) and lighting the candles for the plastic floating flowers that were to go in her pool.
The guests start filtering in and Kim is still puttering about with a bandage over her nose, waiting to show the world what lies underneath and we get to meet her dog, Kingsley, who is just as badly behaved as you would imagine Kim Richards' dog would be. Kyle came over and said, "What happened with the dog and your nose?" And Kim replies, "Well, it had to be completely redone and this is all because you once said that I have a really ugly nose and I need to get it done for you." Me-ow. Oh, wait, this is about a dog. Ba-ark.
Then there's a call from the Widow Armstrong and, well, ironically it is a Kim Richards call to Kim Richards' party. You know the Kim Richards call, when your friend phones you up all drunk with some stupid excuse why she can't meet you. We've all gotten that call. Kim perfected it, but now the Widow Armstrong is taking over. "He guys. Sorry, I can't come to the party because I met this guy two days ago and he was like, 'Hey, let's go to Beaver Creek for the weekend,' and at first I thought he meant like 'Beaver Creek,' like he just wanted to go down on me for days, but apparently Beaver Creek is a real place and we're going. We're on our way to the airport now, so I can't make the party, I hope you understand."
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Kyle, who brought the Widow Armstrong's daughter Kennedy to the Only the Nose Knows Noses party responds, "Oh, well, do you want Kennedy to spend the night at my house?" And the Widow Armstrong says, "Oh, she's with you?! Oh, then I guess that's OK. Thanks Kyle, you're the best. Even though I threw mad shade at you last week about kicking me out of your White Party, thank you for taking care of my misplaced offspring. Oh, look, champers! Gots to go. Oh, I'll be back in time for the White Party, don't you worry. Byesies!!"
Okay, that is all just sad. Everything that happened there is like your soul falling out of your body and being trampled on by a stampede of wildebeests. That's what everything the Widow Armstrong just said should feel like. But she's so drunk all she feels is that warmth and vague car-sickness that goes with a good buzz.
Kyle and Kim then have to talk about this development with all the ladies there and Adrienne has the gaul to laugh at the Widow Armstrong. Yes, a woman — who lies about suing people and has a chef who sells stories about her guests to the tabloids and who you have to baby wipe the furniture after is — laughing at someone else. That's rich. Faye Resnick opened her mouth and a flood of hornets came out with a deadly buzz and then she shut up and the cloud of insects just dissipated into the night. Fetch had some sort of opinion on the whole matter, but who the hell cares what this bitch has to say? I mean, at least get a $25K pair of sunglasses or something.
Into the party comes a man looking like a combination between Lurch from The Addams Family and that guy in the horror movie who controls rats. It's Kim's doctor and he's there with some hot piece to take off Kim's bandage at her house. They go off into her bedroom. Kim takes Brooke, her daughter who looks just like her, and the doctor slowly takes off the bandages by rubbing a Q-Tip underneath them. Kim looks into the mirror like she's on The Swan and she's catching a glimpse of her new face for the first time. "Oh, look at me!" Kim yells. I look so young and so fresh. My hair is so straight and blond, but, wait... I still have my old nose. Why is there still that small bump in my nose?"
"Mom, that's me," Brooke says. "You're looking at me!"
"Oh," Kim says. "Oh..." And she sort of trails off and touches her face, pushing it up at the cheeks as if it was moldable clay. She stares quietly, wondering why it wasn't all fixed, why she didn't look as different as she felt. She just has a fleshy putty nose. But she has to go outside. She walks out onto the lanai and everyone is waiting for her, standing around for the big reveal and she shows up and... There it is. There is her nose. It just looks, well, normal. Congrats, Kim. You now have the exact same nose as every other woman in Beverly Hills. Your face is now perfectly bland. Three cheers!
Kim goes around the party and everyone congratulates her. Well, everyone except for Adrienne, who says three times that her husband Paul could have done a better job. Oh, and why didn't Kim convalesce at the Palms while she's at it? Maybe take in a Sacramento Kings game. God, Adrienne, shut up. The only other person who hates it is Kim's niece Portia. Kyle's daughter is petrified of plastic surgery. Something about seeing the people that she knows best with faces that are singed with lasers, burned with chemicals, and sculpted with invasive procedures just freaks out this four-year-old. She doesn't like when the people she love turn into stretched-faced ghoul people. What could possibly be wrong with her?
Everyone packs up and leaves the party and no one touched Kim's chicken salad. It sat there in a bowl untouched by any hands other than Kim's. Now it's time to clean up, pack up the espresso bar, collect all the floating candles out of the pool. Kim hikes up her sundress and squats down on the concrete surrounding the water. She paddles the water slightly, sending ripples out into it and drawing all the floating flowers towards her. She pulls them out one by one, blowing out the candle and stacking them next to her.
There's only one flower left and it's slowly bobbing around the water, just in the middle. Kim's rowing is doing nothing but making it jostle back and forth, the tea light swaying and casting cascading shadows as it shakes. She stops and just waits, there on her haunches. She looks out onto the deck and thinks about Taylor. She thinks about her on some plane with a man on her way to Beaver Creek. She thinks about her looking out of the window of the plane and just seeing darkness below. That darkness that is pocked with strange flecks of light, like a little bit of glitter dusted on a jacket. Either that or a star embedded in the soil, burning everything around it. She thinks about Taylor looking back at that man and reaching for another glass, wondering where they're going to end up and not caring, not caring if the plane just silently drops out of the sky like a stone and embeds itself into the earth — burning, not so much like a star, but like a pyre. She thinks of Taylor wanting to purge herself and not knowing how. She thinks about that plane.
And she looks out at the last flower and it exhausts her. She looks down at the water and sees her face, this strange face looking back at her. Kim doesn't know how she got so old. She really thought she was Brooke for a second. That's how she remembers herself. That's the only way she sees herself. People say that the years go by so quickly, but that's not true. It's so slow. It's so slow and it happens one line at a time, no, one cell at a time. Each one stretching out and dying. She takes a deep breath and exhales out her nose. "I can breathe again," she says to no one listening. "I can breathe." She lets out another deep snort and it finally sends the flower across the pool to the far edge. Kim gets up and her knees pop. She pads over to the other side and plucks out the final flower from her pool. She lets out another breath to extinguish the flame and it just shimmys away from her and fades but then stands upright once again. It's never easy for Kim. And she can never get it done right the first time.
[Photo Credit: Bravo]
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Diablo Cody recently declared that Girls star/creator Lena Dunham is this generation's "new Woody Allen" and while the statement brought divided opinions (as all things Dunham-related tend to do), after watching this week's devastating, brilliant, and very New York Woody Allen-esque episode of Girls, the Juno writer might just be on to something.
While I'd argue that Louis C.K. has actually perfected the art of New York comedian neuroticism — I hesitate slightly in calling him the new Woody Allen, though, as Louis C.K. romanticizes the city much less than he embodies its oft-unforgiving reality — last night's episode of Girls, titled "One Man's Trash," felt as much a Woody Allen homage as it did a Louie homage.
The episode started off as typical and inconspicuous as any episode of Girls. Hannah, dressed in an outfit as unflattering as any other she'd worn before, was once again letting someone know just how clever she is. This time she claimed that she'd coined the next big phrase: "sexit," which means to make a sexy exit. The only problem was that the term already existed on Urban Dictionary (there it means "to make a speedy exit during the middle of sexual intercourse). Plus, she told this all to Ray, the most humorless, joyless person in existence. (I still don't quite see what Shoshanna does.)
Mid-conversation Ray and Hannah were interrupted by the sudden presence of a tall, dark, handsome stranger (played by Patrick Wilson). He was a local neighbor who came into Grumpy's to complain that one of the employees has been dumping the coffee shop's trash into his trash cans two blocks away. Rather than try out the tactic of "customer is always right" or basic human decency, Ray immediately went on the defense, called him a "f**king pinko," and did nothing to alleviate the situation. Hannah, who had been looking guilty the minute the word "trash cans" was uttered, rightfully told Ray he was rude and quit on the spot because she no longer wanted to work in such a "toxic work environment."
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Cut to Hannah standing at the foot of the steps of a very beautiful brownstone, presumably the home of the upset neighbor, meaning she was the guilty culprit, as expected. (Quick, annoying New Yorker sidebar: Grumpy's famously resides in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Greenpoint, but this scene was filmed over the summer in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Fort Greene, which is a full three-and-a-half miles away. Moreover, both neighborhoods have noticeably different aesthetics and if you're a Brooklynite, you knew the minute she showed up at that house, she wasn't in Greenpoint anymore, Toto. A minor annoyance, maybe, but for a show that gets a lot right about New York City, this one was a pretty obvious blunder. End of annoying New Yorker sidebar.)
After knocking on the door, the handsome stranger answered and Hannah apologized for Ray's deplorable behavior and said she had something to tell him. He invited her in, to which she responded, "I could really be putting myself in a Ted Bundy situation. He also looked clean, handsome, and probably had…a brownstone." And with that, she realized this man was certainly no Ted Bundy, ducked past him and entered his home as if she'd done it a million times before. He looked equal parts confused and amused.
Hannah was stunned when she stepped inside, and understandably so. He lived in an elegant, enviable, and very-grown up home. She joked that she felt like she was "in a Nancy Meyers" movie. The two, despite their wildly different socioeconomic statuses and general disposition, already had a instant rapport with each other. He was surprised by her, in a good way, and she said things in her very unfiltered Hannah way ("You're probably a little insane, we all are") but wasn't met with snide resistance like she usually does when she talks to someone her age.
Eventually she admitted that she dumped the trash in his cans, not only because she lost the Grumpy's dumpster key and didn't want to admit it to Ray, but because putting trash in places it isn't legally supposed to go is her vice. It's a pretty rare thing to see Hannah willingly, humbly admit she was wrong, and even more rare for Hannah to be forgiven for her mistakes, which is exactly what the stranger did when she apologized. Whether she felt safe in his picturesque Brooklyn brownstone or that she could be raw and real around this man or that he's just so damn beautiful (probably a little bit of everything), Hannah bravely, impulsively kissed him…and he kissed her back.
Within moments he put her on his kitchen counter for a very sexy make-out session, and between passionate kisses they traded statistics (he was 42 to her 24) and flirtatious banter (he adorably guessed her name is Daisy). I know there will be naysayers that will argue this sort of thing doesn't happen, and some will inevitably argue for sadly shallow reasons that it wouldn't happen between these two (so wrong), but remember, this is New York, anything can and does happen at all hours of the day.
Post-weird (but not in a bad way) hookup, Hannah learned that his name is Joshua (not Josh) and he learned that she is Hannah, not Daisy. She also learned that he is recently separated from his wife, he's a doctor, and that cooking steaks and drinking wine on a glamorous back deck isn't something that only happens when planned guests come over. The two, despite having just met and having sex, were instantly comfortable with one another. Hannah looked, oddly enough, at home there, maybe even more so than Joshua, who joked that he's an "old ghost" in the hip, young neighborhood. Perhaps her comfort was because, for the first time ever, we've actually seen what Hannah can be like when she's being herself around a man, not what she wants to project to him.
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I say man because that is exactly what Joshua is: a grown-up man. He didn't play mind games or speak in riddles, when he told Hannah he wanted her to stay he meant it. When Hannah tried to make things difficult or blurry, he pus her in her place and asked her to say and do what she actually wanted. When she asked him to beg her to stay, he obliged in a moment that was hilarious ("Not like you're in Toy Story") and romantic and exhilarating. When they began to have sex again, it was authentic (boy, Patrick Wilson as good at these kind of scenes, isn't he?) and actually sexy. Girls has a lot of sex in it, but rarely is it as sexy as it is uncomfortable or depressing. Then again, Hannah has never had sex with anyone who actually knew what they were doing (he told her she's beautiful, and meant it, and he was damn good at dirty talk, too) and wasn't just there for his own pleasure. Hannah, for the first time ever, wasn't faking it, in every sense of the word.
The next morning Hannah woke to find Joshua lounging in his sun-drenched, impeccably decorated living room. He'd called out of work to spend the day with her ("What happens when a doctor calls in sick?" Hannah asked, to which Joshua, not skipping a beat, replied "Ten to twenty people die" and Hannah let out the most genuine laughter we've ever heard come from her) and demanded she do the same. They spent the day playing ping pong, making love, and genuinely enjoying each other's company.
When she later joined him on the back deck, draped in his lovely, expensive sweater, she marveled at him. Wordlessly, we saw a mixture of sheer happiness, knowing sadness, and a lifetime of realizations sweep across her face. He was everything she'd been missing, everything she was supposed to be looking for in this world. He treated her the way she was meant to be treated. He sent a calm, flirtatious glance her way and she smiled shyly. It was maybe the most romantic scene on television in a long time.
By nightfall, however, it all changed. After Hannah accidentally passed out in his shower ("I thought I was a gummy worm for like seven minutes"), either from the heat or the overwhelming emotional heft of the day (I'm guessing both), she lay her head on his lap in his bed as he stroked her hair and calmed her down. I take it back — maybe that is the most romantic scene on television in a long time. Hannah, totally immersed in the moment, began to cry. When he asked her what was wrong, she told him she'd had the life-changing realizations that she actually wants to be happy, that she was sicking of living a life of experiences for the enjoyment of other people who walk all over her, that she wanted the stability and normalcy she has fought so hard against. It's a lot to take in.
But even in a moment of clarity, Hannah was still just a 24-year-old trying to figure it out and still, as she put it, was "broken inside." She realized that, at the core, maybe she was "the crazy girl" who quotes Fiona Apple in conversation and over-shares embarrassing or downright horrific stories and turns away the genuine feelings of others because she's too wrapped up in her own. In the most excruciating five minutes of the show, Hannah made everything unravel, and despite realizing that she was "deeply lonely" did things to push away and scare off someone like Joshua for good. They wouldn't have worked, in the end, but Hannah self-sabotaged it before it even had a real chance. But that's who she is, at this age and at this moment in time, and that also makes it okay.
Despite the awkward moment, Joshua still had her stay the night, because he was a well-meaning man at the core, if not one in the middle of his own crossroads and one who did something impulsive while he was still technically married. Hannah was just as much an escape for reality for him as he was for her. He got to be young and cool and needed in the eyes of someone who was young and cool. There were no harsh realities (like his marriage) until Hannah made him remember that no one was perfect and going to make his life carefree as it once was.
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The next morning Hannah woke up alone to a quiet, empty house. The light outside was not as bright, and thus the house felt darker, sadder. In a sequence that was reminiscent and worthy of a sequence in Louie, Hannah spent the morning soaking in the last few moments of a life that was not hers….just yet. (Like Louie, this was also set to a terrific score, here set to the music of Michael Penn). She read the paper, ate toast with fancy jam, wore the shirt of the sensitive, sexy doctor whom she shared a bed with. It was wonderful and sad and lovely all at once, and Dunham deserves all the credit in the world for penning a scene that said so much with saying nothing at all.
Whenever I find it hard to love or connect to Hannah it's usually because she's too self-involved and shows no signs of caring about anyone other than herself. But in one simple gesture — taking out Joshua's trash after taking one thoughtful last look at his home —she changed my mind. There's something deep inside of her that does have the capability of caring about someone other than herself, doing something for someone that doesn't benefit her. I realized that, and perhaps she realized that, as she walked away from Joshua's place on a breezy summer afternoon. (Now that was a Woody Allen moment on the show if there ever was one).
This was, far and away, my favorite Girls episode to date. It was sexy, funny, moody, and told an important story in just thirty minutes. It showed us that we can connect with the most unexpected people in the most unexpected circumstances. That we can randomly walk into people's lives and change them forever. That we'll have experiences with some people whom we'll never see again but will leave an indelible mark on us. (I can't imagine Hannah and Joshua will ever see each other again, but I have no doubt they'll always cross each other's minds for the rest of their lives). That doesn't make Dunham the voice of a generation, that makes her a voice any generation.
[Photo credit: HBO]
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